Doctor’s Note – Week 13
Last week saw the release of Puzzlecraft: The Ultimate Guide on How to Construct Every Kind of Puzzle, a really incredible project with Mike Selinker that was an extension of our GAMES Magazine articles that have run for many years (I joined Mike around article #48 when he wanted to write on how to construct Battleships. I’ve been part of the process ever since as we now approach #100). The title seems overly broad, but I challenge anyone to come up with a puzzle style that isn’t covered in the book.
Last week also saw Mike and I finish construction on a book you’ll get to see next year, Tile Crosswords, a word puzzle style that we developed out of the logic puzzle “Crack-It-On” that first appeared at the WPC in Hungary in the late 90s. You might not picture me as someone who fills grids with letters that have a meaning when considered as intact strings, let alone then provides sets of letters outside the grid that also form strings that evoke the sets of letters that are in the grid — certainly if I write about making word grids and cluing them that way it would seem impossible that I even speak English — but it is something I’ve been increasingly finding joy in doing.
The reason I mention all this is to give you some forewarning that over the coming months we may have other puzzle types than just sudoku and abstract logic puzzles here. Just as with the Hidden Contest that ended last week, I intend Grandmaster Puzzles to have all the kinds of puzzles I would like to solve, but with a friendly mix of easy to hard and lots of different genres so that if today is not your cup of tea, then tomorrow probably is. You may only think of me as a logic puzzle constructor, but working with Mike over the last few years has really developed my puzzle-making chops in almost every area.
Whatever puzzles we release here, they should still be worthy in their genres of being called masterpieces.
Sincerely,
Dr. S
